In 1972, my parents having scrimped and saved, bought a three bedroomed end terrace, overlooking our local park. In its' own way it was quite an imposing building, about ninety years old at the time, with a pleasing view through the bay window, across the road and into the greenery beyond.
So much of my memories are framed by that bay window. From an early age I was interested in cars, so always took an interest in what was parked outside by the people visiting the park. As I grew up, the Vauxhall Vivas and Ford Cortinas made way for the Sierras and Montegos, much later to be replaced by the Accords and the odd Matiz.
When I look through that window I can still see the blonde haired four year old chasing his dad, my dad, down the street in his pyjamas and dressing gown. My dad with his jet black afro hair and bushy black beard. Many years later, I commented he must have been shitting himself when West Yorkshire Police released the photofit during the ripper enquiry. It drew a suitably abusive response. He'd read me a bedtime story where the villagers had put walking beans in an evil elf's shoes to make him walk out of town. I told my dad I had put the same beans in his shoes. We were almost through the gates of the park by the time he stopped, me crying, "I didn't really do it daddy". I still carry the mental scars today. His hair is now white, mine's gone through brown and is now grey.
The time, in the late seventies when I looked skyward and for what seemed liked minutes watched a flock of starlings migrating south for winter. Literally thousands of them, passing overhead like a bomber stream on its' way to Berlin, circa 1943.
That same park that my dad used to walk through enroute to the bus stop, often with our first cat Trudy following him. One day as he got on the bus he told her to wait for him. When he returned from work he went into the park through the side entrance. Next day there was still no sign of Trudy. Worried we went looking for her and found her still sat on top of the shelter, waiting for my dad to get off the bus.
Looking through that bay window, onto the street, our street where Trudy met her end, left for dead by a passing motorist one night. She still lies buried underneath the rockery in the back garden. My first taste of bereavement.
As I grew older, I started to venture further afield, heading off on my bike, pretending to be Barry Sheen, whilst tear arsing round the park. One day I tried a bit too hard, the pedal touching the ground as I leaned over. I managed to stagger back to our house, my right thigh slowly turning purple.
There used to be a rocking horse in the play area, the type that could seat four or five people. It was made from wood, and rested on a metal beam. Eventually the council removed the wooden part, when it became too rotten to repair, leaving the metal beam in place. One day, around the time of the Moscow Olympics, I decided to perform a spot of gymnastics by walking along the bar, unfortunately it was a bit damp and I slipped. I think my testicles must have retreated into my abdomen as my entire body weight came crashing down on them. Happy days.
This coincided with my grandparents retiring and joining the veterans bowling club in the park. In those days there were separate clubs for men and women, with separate club houses and greens. My grandad told me the men's green was the second biggest in the country. What seemed like acres of flawless, billiard table-like manicured grass stretching off into the distance across the crown and out towards the gutter. The women's green was the same. I took up crown green bowling about the same time and used to regularly play against my grandad in the school holidays on that green.
One of the gents in the veterans club had been there on the day the park was opened in 1902. My grandad used to talk to him because he had knocked around with his dad, my great-grandad. Strange that, when I looked at them, all I saw was two old men. It didn't register that one was old enough to be the other one's father.
Things started to change around this time. The first noticeable sign was that the council put shutters up over the windows of the men's clubhouse. There was simply too much vandalism going on. In time the shutters were covered in graffiti.
Not long afterwards they started to thin out some of the bushes so the park took on a more open appearance, the reason given, to discourage the drug users that were sleeping rough in there.
Some time in the nineties, the women's club house was burnt down as a result of an arson attack. No forensics, no arrests, no prosecutions of course. Just the charred remains of a building that had served as a social hub for generations of senior citizens levelled and consigned to the dustbin of history.
About the same time they grassed over the rose garden to provide a football pitch for the groups of youths that were now congregating in the park on a nightly basis. I have no problem with this, although the rose garden was beautiful in summer. The teenagers have as much right to use the park as anyone else.
Apparently this wasn't good enough though. The same gangs decided they wanted to use the ladies' bowling green for their nightly football games instead. The council made a token effort to stop them, the odd visit by their patrollers, who were met with threats and abuse and therefore had to retreat and leave the offenders to it.
A crown green is not made to have a football kicked around on it, nor will it hold up under repeated sliding tackles. Eventually the council gave up.
Today I walked through the park. The women's bowling green now has the appearance of a 1970s third division football pitch, covered in ruts and mud. Of course there are the first signs of the men's green going the same way.
One can regularly hear groups of feral youths shouting to one another at four o'clock in the morning from inside the locked parked gates. My neighbours cars have been vandalised two nights running within the last fortnight.
The government would have us believe that crime is falling, something which I do not believe for a second. I've seen at first hand the way crime recording statistics can be manipulated. We have more police officers than ever, but fear of crime is at an all time high since those self same police officers are so weighed down by bureaucracy, that they are unable to provide a meaningful, visible deterrent. The much trumpetted PCSOs, "Blunkett's Bobbies", whom he told us were going to be "the eyes and ears of the police" don't work full nights and in any case lack the skills, training, equipment or powers to deal effectively with anti-social behaviour. In any case I'm forced to ask why we would need anyone to be the eyes and ears of the police if we could free up officers time to actually get out onto the ground and into the faces of these wrongdoers.
The liberal intelligentsia would have us believe that crime has always been at present day levels. It's just that we live in a modern media age where crime is far more visible due to repeated reporting. Where members of the public are far more likely to pick up the phone and report matters, where they will then be recorded, rather than attempt to sort things out themselves, but I don't believe that for a second.
I know things are always better when seen through the lense of nostalgia, but I've seen things start to slide, I seen the effects of parents abdicating their responsibilites to the state. Of individuals abdicating their responsibilities to themselves and those around them by sticking a needle in their arm. Of the criminal justice system turning its' back on citizens and protecting the human rights of persistent offenders at the expense of their victims. Of the state breaking its' contract with the law abiding. I've seen it all through my bay window, looking out onto the park with the crown green.
That same bay window where my mum turned to me in 1998 and said, "I've been to the hospital, you know my cancer's terminal don't you". I didn't but I just nodded. What's to say when your world's just caved in on you? Ten years now since she's been gone, but I wonder what she would make of the state of the park. God knows I miss her, but in a way I am glad she is not here to witness it.